Are you a writer and in what genre (s) do you write?

I wrote college recommendations for seniors in high school for 12 years. 40 kids time 12 equals 480 pages, the equivalent of a very boring novel.

<—Poet.

I think most everyone here knows what genre I write :-p

I once aspired to be published, but gradually it became clear to me that no one would ever be interested. So I don’t worry about it any more, and just say whatever the fuck I want to. This place is nice about that because they don’t stop you. Hey Honey! Look here! No editors! They let me say anything!

I’m not much of a writer and I don’t have much intention of ever being published; I write mostly for myself and people who are close and who are interested. I write generally horror/mystery/surreal.

poetry, children’s stories, fiction.
Write for the love of it.
Currently working on the publishing part.

Mostly poetry, short stories and creative nonfiction. Occasionally, I write scripts. I’ve been published but don’t really talk about it IRL.

I can do articles and academic writing, but it’s not as enjoyable.

Surrealistic and nihilistic anti-human erotica

I have a technical book on electronics now in its second edit and third printing. It’s getting dated now, though, so sales are way down. Other than that, I have published erotic fiction. When I sit down for my net book, the target will be a blockbuster novel that’s sure to sell movie rights and maybe even a TV series. Writing a technical book taught me what not to write. It only took 3 terms to finish it. Ford, Carter and Reagan.

I’m a poet and a young adult fiction author. I’ve won several awards for my poetry before, and I often translate my poetry into song lyrics for my band. My poetry falls into two distinct categories: deeply personal poems with a wistful, playful touch, and typically darker poems that are heavily laden with historical allusions and religious metaphors. Poetry appeals to me because I am really, really good at writing vignettes, and poetry is sort of the ultimate way to capture vignettes in writing.

Regarding young adult fiction, I have completed a YA novel that I am currently waiting on getting back from my editor. It’s called The Hypnonaut and it is about a college freshman who uncovers his crush’s sordid past through his lucid dreams. I started writing it my freshman year after abandoning my almost-finished Lovecraftian horror novel, but I abandoned it for a year or two when I was suffering from serious writer’s block. During this time, I came up with a number of other concepts to eventually translate into fiction, which I worked on in bits and pieces as they evolved. These finally manifested as the novels Spookyville, Bixi Girl, and Sam McKenzie Does Good for a Change. Inspired by Stephen King, I decided to tie these three future works in with the universe I created with The Hypnonaut. As of right now, they are in varying stages of completion, with Bixi Girl as the most complete and my current primary project. It is also the one that is closest to my heart (it is about two brothers, one older and self assured, the other young and plagued with emotional problems who fall in love with a wild girl named Bixi, whose traumatic death they are forced to cope with).

The appeal that writing YA fiction holds for me is twofold: for one, it seems to me that it can be the most emotionally earnest genre of literature. Secondly, it lets me live out experiences I didn’t have as a teenager, while fictionalizing and reminiscing on the experiences I did have. This simultaneously helps me preserve my youth, I believe. It also is a way of journaling, for me, almost. As a whole, in regards to my actual YA writing, I try to stick with realistic settings (no castles, space stations, or dystopian cyberpunk futures for me) and characters that are forced to deal with realistic conflicts. I try to inject a great deal of emotion as well as super quirky humor into my writing. A favorite trope of mine is to use the manic pixie dream girl as a protagonist, which I try to subvert by making her a deep character in her various incarnations in my work.

Aside from fictionalizing my own emotions and experiences, and from getting stories down on paper that I feel like must be told, I do write to be published one day. I want nothing more than to be a well-known YA author, like John Green or Stephen Chbosky, who are my YA heroes.

Mostly short essays about life in general on my own personal blog (link is on my profile page). Of course, I write for the Fluther blog now, and rarely have time or the motivation to write for myself these days.

I’ve also done quite a bit of business writing in the past. I guess you could call that being published, but it’s a bit of a stretch. Brochures and marketing tools don’t really count, I think. I’ve had an op/ed piece published in a local newspaper, and won a monthly writing contest at Real Simple magazine. The prize was a book on housekeeping. Whoopie. ~

I have published a book on learning the harp, which trickles out the door regularly through the year. Nice feeling. :-)

Songs which some might consider pop-poetry.

Now that is an interesting question! I like to muse on paper for my own greater clarity on some things upfront and sometimes personal. Now what to do with the Xerox boxes of those musings is my current thought line. Read and pitch or just pitch. They’ve served their purpose and I am on a continual downsize with that being the last frontier to conquer.

Does anyone consider what they do on fluther to be Writing with a capital W?

Not Really with a capital N and R. (I do take pride, however, in an elegant sentence.)

@gailcalled Better call it an Elegant Sentence (with a capital E and S) or no one will take you Seriously.

The Brain – is wider than the Sky –
For – put them side by side –
The one the other will contain
With ease – and You – beside –

The Brain is deeper than the sea –
For – hold them – Blue to Blue –
The one the other will absorb –
As Sponges – Buckets – do –

The Brain is just the weight of God –
For – Heft them – Pound for Pound –
And they will differ – if they do –
As Syllable from Sound –

—Emily Dickinson

dying is fine)but Death

?o
baby
i

wouldn’t like

Death if Death
were
good:for

when(instead of stopping to think)you

begin to feel of it,dying
‘s miraculous
why?be

cause dying is

perfectly natural;perfectly
putting
it mildly lively(but

Death

is strictly
scientific
& artificial &

evil & legal)

we thank thee
god
almighty for dying
(forgive us,o life!the sin of Death

—e.e. cummings

@wundayatta: Ever since Andrew taught us that you can sing any stanza of Emily Dickinson to the tune of The Yellow Rose of Texas, I have been hard put to take most of it seriously.

And e.e. cummings strays so far from conformity as to make his verses hard to parse.

I write very informally just for fun. I’m working on a sci-fi story right now.

@gailcalled Yes, that is well-known about Emily. I’ve been singing that tune with all the wrong words since college. As to cummings, I think the difficulty in parsing is part of what he’s trying to do. But I gather you don’t care for either poet, perhaps in no small part due to their non-standard spelling and grammar.

@wundayatta: In spite of the glitches with Emily, there are many of her verses that I find powerful and worth rereading.

With cummings, I would have to rewrite everything in order to enjoy reading. That seems an unnecessary distraction.

I consider it Riting with a capital R.

@zensky The best social commentary is Righting with a capital R.

Rite you are my learned friend.